posted July 29, 2005 03:03 PM            

A U.S.-drafted resolution, adopted unanimously by the 15-nation council, expanded and better defined the groups covered by a council initiative put in place after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.

Co-sponsored by Denmark, France, Greece, Japan and Russia, the measure also sets out more steps governments must take to try to prevent individuals and groups tied to al Qaeda or the Taliban from sponsoring, organizing or carrying out attacks.

"What the council is looking at is to pursue any act of terrorism from wherever they are coming," said Greek Ambassador Adamantios Vassilakis, the council president for July.

Under the existing program, a Security Council committee maintains a list of more than 300 individuals, businesses and organizations suspected of links to al Qaeda and the Taliban. All 191 U.N. member nations are obliged to freeze their funds and other assets, block their travel and keep them from obtaining arms and other resources.

The newly passed resolution expands the initiative's reach to any individual or entity "participating in the financing, planning, facilitating, preparing or perpetrating of acts or activities by, in conjunction with, under the name of, on behalf of, or in support of" al Qaeda or the Taliban.

Also covered is "any cell, affiliate, splinter group or derivative" of them as well as any group or individual recruiting for them or supplying them with arms.

The text also clarifies how names are added to the list -- or removed if later found to be added in error.

It asks Interpol to add the council's listings to its own databases and calls on world governments to promptly invalidate all stolen or lost passports.

U.N. counter-terrorism experts, in a report issued in February, said governments should work more closely with Interpol to identify lost and stolen passports to thwart terrorist attacks.